


To Die (Without Regrets)

by Tcharlatan



Category: Dir en grey
Genre: Band Fic, Confessions, Fluff, Hospitals, Insomnia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-08
Updated: 2012-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-20 14:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tcharlatan/pseuds/Tcharlatan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With too much time on his hands and painkillers dulling his sense of propriety, Kyo tries to figure out how to confess his feelings for one of his best friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Die (Without Regrets)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of pure fiction. I do not personally know any of the members of Dir en grey, and do not profit from this work.

_~click~ … ~clack~_

One long-fingered hand turned a small, silver cell phone over and over, their owner staring absently at the generic white-tile ceiling overhead. Restless, despite the late hour and a fairly remarkable amount of painkillers steadily being pumped into the wrist of the hand not occupied by fidgeting. Kyo hated hospitals. Normally, when he couldn’t sleep, he would just go for a walk; breathe the night air and escape the overwhelming feeling of loneliness that haunted him in his off hours. But he couldn’t now. He was bound to this bed, with tubes and intravenous fluids and overbearing nurses, surrounded on all sides by the sick and dying. He knew they were there, even if he couldn’t see them from his room. They haunted him, kept him awake into the wee hours of the morning, trapped in his own troubled thoughts.

_~click~ … ~clack~_

He’d put up a brave face for the others when he’d first come here, not wanting them to worry about him anymore than they already were. It hadn’t been easy. When the stage equipment malfunctioned and blew out his left ear, the damage had been excruciating; it felt like a hot poker had been rammed into his skull. But even after the doctors had brought the pain back under control, he was fully and absolutely _terrified_ that he was going to be entirely deaf on that side. How could he go on with Dir en grey if he couldn’t hear? He already didn’t think he was all that great of a vocalist; if he was deaf on top of that, that was it. His career would be over.

_~click~ … ~clack~_

For hours, he had despaired over this. Losing the band – and not just Dir en grey, who he loved so dearly, but the potential to be in any band again, ever – would have ended him. At length, he decided he wasn’t going to do it. He wasn’t going to let go of what he’d fought so hard to build; he was just going to have to learn how to function with one ear. A strange sort of resolve settled over him then, as if something inside him was hardening and becoming stronger. He found he liked it.

_~click~ … ~clack~_

But even with the matter settled in his mind, it left him wondering. What if his career had ended tonight? What if his _life_ had ended? It’s so easy to think ‘I’m only 26, I have all the time in the world’ and forget that everything could change at any given moment. He realized that if he had died, or even if he had been forced to quit the band, he would have been leaving behind more unfulfilled hopes and desires than he could even count. So many things he wanted to do, so many things he wanted to say, so many songs he wanted to sing… and he’d been putting them off, for what? For fear? Now his greatest fear was to die the cheap imitation of his dreams he’d been living as.

_~click~ … ~clack~_

He wanted to stop hiding behind the androgyny and frippery that people seems to want to define his music genre by. He wanted to _change;_ leave behind the corsets and feathers and geisha make-up and dress in things that expressed what he really felt like. He wanted blood. He wanted piercings. He wanted tattoos. And more than anything, he wanted to claw himself open until he found the words held in the twisting darkness at his core and pour _those_ out with the most brutal, bitterest honesty he could force into his voice and body.

_~click~ … ~clack~_

There was one more thing he wanted… one more thing that he realized he would regret forever if he died having never reached for it. But he just wasn’t sure how to say it. How could he tell one of his best friends that they were hurting him every day, just by being themselves? That he suffered in their presence because he couldn’t touch them the way he wanted to, and yet, to be away from them was an even deeper torment? It seemed too dramatic, but Kyo was, by nature, something of a dramatic creature.

_~click~ …_

He frowned down at his phone’s glowing screen, leaving it open this time. Slowly, he opened up his contact list and selected one of the first entries, pulling open a text window. His thumbs hovered over the keypad for a long time, motionless until the light dimmed itself to preserve batteries. Hesitantly, he started to type.

_[I’ve been thinking a lot, lately, and I just wanted to tell you]_

He frowned at that. Already it sounded pathetic.

-Deleted-

_[I guess this might be kind of sudden, but I want you to know that I]_

-Deleted-

Frustration bubbled up in him, wrapping itself around his restlessness. He hated things like this. Irritably, he just started typing and deleting everything that came to mind.

_[So I know you’re basically perfect and I’m a disgusting troll, but I wonder if you could ever get drunk enough to fuck me?]_

-Deleted-

_[Remember when I caught you naked in that hotel room, and you teased me about being gay for looking? Funny story...]_

-Deleted-

_[Just so you know, I’ve spent almost every day of our friendship pining after you.]_

-Deleted-

_[You’ve always given me so much strength… but I think you might be my greatest weakness.]_

-Deleted-

_[I’m absolutely out of my mind in love with]_

“Shit!”

-DELETED-

He sighed and let the hand holding his phone drop to the thin hospital blanket. Everything he could think of felt like too much – sappy and over-sentimental – or too little – implying only lust when he wanted more. He just wanted to say how he felt, without freaking anybody out or sounding like some delicate, love-sick idiot. For a moment, he considered just letting the whole thing go, at least until morning, or maybe for a couple days so he could have more time to think it over.

But then, wasn’t that what he’d been doing for years now? Just putting it off forever, until it was too late… He lifted the phone again, frowning thoughtfully at the blank screen.

“If I die tomorrow… I just want him to know that…”

_[I’ve always thought that you’re an amazing person, in basically every way.]_

-Send-

“…Oh shit…”

_[I mean, you’re good looking and talented and smart and all that, but you’re also a really good person, and I’ve always admired you for that.]_

-Send-

“…”

_[And I think I’ve fallen for you, so if you’re not too freaked out by this, I wonder if you would ever want to go out with me sometime?]_

-Send-

There. It was done. Kyo felt his heart pound with something between panic and excitement as he slumped back into his pillow, biting back a soft, nervous laugh of accomplishment. If nothing else, he had changed; he had thrown caution to the wind and done something he never thought he could. His phone vibrating and chiming in his hand startled him horribly. He hadn’t expected an answer so soon. After a moment’s hesitation, he flipped the device back open.

Andou Die: _[No]_

He stared at the message, feeling his stomach sink and constrict until he actually felt nauseous. He supposed he shouldn’t really be surprised at the rejection, but still, it came so swiftly and so tersely… disappointment was a bitter blow. But he forced that down. At least this way he knew; he wouldn’t go to his grave wondering about what could have been, and there was some comfort in that. Rolling onto his side, he tried to settle in enough to take another shot at sleep, mashing his face into his pillow to hide his hurt from an empty room. Then his phone chimed again and he frowned, pulling up the new message.

Andou Die: _[But if you ever want to nut up and tell me all that to my face, you’ve got yourself a date.]_

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was a response to a challenge over at diexkyo_love. Prompt: 'Confession scene involving no embarrassment and no cliches.' Also very inspired by Kyo's interview for Tattoo Burst, and my own experiences with post-surgical painkillers.


End file.
